How do you manage stress?

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When people ask me how do you manage stress, I used to believe it meant engaging in things that brought me calm, reading, playing sports, or knitting. For a while, that approach worked. Engaging my hands and mind in simple pleasures gave me space to unwind, and daily tension would naturally settle.

However, over the last year or two, I hit a point where those comforting activities were no longer enough on their own. You can sit on a yoga mat in the morning and find a brief window of genuine peace. Yet, you can still feel that heavy, familiar wave of anxiety crash back over you by afternoon. Calm activities soothe the mind in the moment. Still, when stress runs deeper, managing it requires turning inward to look at the root causes.

When I finally stopped avoiding that heavy feeling and truly sat with it, I realized my stress was rarely rooted in the present. It was almost always living in two non-existent places, the past I couldn’t rewrite, and the future I couldn’t predict. My mind was constantly rehearsing scenarios and obsessing over how I was perceived, draining my energy on things far beyond my reach.

Root Causes and Changing Perspective

So much of what weighs us down comes back to perspective. Consider an autumn maple leaf. One person looks at it and sees a vivid, fiery red, while someone else looks at the exact same leaf and sees orange. The leaf itself never changes, yet the reality changes for whoever is watching.

Human interactions work much the same way. Unthoughtful words, sudden criticism, and the complex opinions of others will always exist around us. We cannot alter how other people show up. However, we hold full ownership over the lens we choose to wear and how we digest what lands on us.

Learning to separate what I can influence from what I must simply let go of became my daily reminder. These days, I don’t practice yoga or morning meditation to force a perfect mood or pretend everything is okay. I use those quiet moments just to check in, breathe deeply, and notice where my heart is resting before the day begins. Taking extra steps on my walk to work, staying hydrated, and prioritizing sleep aren’t items on a self-care checklist. They are small, gentle ways to keep an anxious mind from running wild on an exhausted body.

Setting Boundaries to Protect Our Inner Peace

Perhaps the most crucial practice has been establishing soft, clear boundaries with the world around us. When we are young, our inner world is quiet and uncluttered, shared only with those closest to us. As we grow up, society bombards us with so many expectations, opinions, and noise that our own authentic voice gets drowned out under the volume.

Setting boundaries is simply about turning down the outside chatter so you can finally hear yourself again.

Sometimes, the most healing thing we can do is sit in total stillness. No phone, no goals, and no trying to fix or optimize anything about our lives. Just listening to the breeze, hearing the birds, feeling the air against our skin, and remembering that sitting here right now is completely enough.

Learning to Accept Who We Are Right Now

It took a steep learning curve, honest reflections, and a few key books to reach this space. I like having a few reliable references to reach for when anxiety flares up. When I was navigating a period of heavy self-doubt, a friend suggested Don’t Believe Everything You Think by Joseph Nguyen. This book didn’t offer complicated theories; it simply delivered a gentle, necessary truth that our deepest suffering rarely comes from reality itself, but from the unexamined stories we tell ourselves about it.

One specific page from the book stayed with me long after I closed the cover, and it captures the essence of what I was trying to learn:

Reading this line brought a sense of relief. So much of my anxiety/stress stemmed from a subtle, constant pressure to constantly refine who I am as if peace of mind was something I had to earn by becoming calmer, wiser, or more capable. But this insight shifted everything. It helped me realize that real self-growth isn’t about placing heavier expectations on our shoulders or striving to meet an invisible standard. It is letting go of the false idea that who we are right now is somehow incomplete.

When we stop treating ourselves as something that constantly needs changing, the inner noise fades, and our spirit finally gets to rest.

At the end of the day, we don’t always need to be solving, striving, or moving forward. Simply arriving in this exact second, breathing through it, and allowing yourself to exist right here is more than enough. Just by living through this moment, you are already doing your very best.

So with that in mind, I sit here to meditate, simply to start my day as my authentic self, appreciating my body and mind as I welcome another morning.